The spirits in the sphere of Jupiter spell out--one letter at a time,
like cheerleaders or a marching band at a sporting event--the Latin
words diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram ("cherish
justice, you who judge the earth"), a fitting reminder to kings and
other secular rulers. The final letter formed, the m of
terram, then changes to a new shape: a number of lights rise
upward to form the neck and head of an eagle while the remaining
spirits first weave the figure of a lily around the lines of the
m and finally settle into the shape of the eagle's body
(18.70-114). Taken together, these signs establish Jupiter as the
sphere of just rulers. The letter m is the first letter of
monarchia, a Latin word indicating the political power of the
empire. Dante, who believed in independent, equal institutions for
political
power (empire) and spiritual authority (papacy), wrote a Latin
treatise (Monarchia) and several letters supporting the
reestablishment of a strong, viable empire. The eagle, as seen in
the historical events narrated by
Justinian,
is the symbol of the Roman Empire, as well as the supreme deity
(Jove, Jupiter) of classical mythology (see Dante's
first
dream in Purgatory). The lily is an emblem, closer to Dante's day,
of both the French monarchy and the city of Florence. This eagle
formed in the sphere of Jupiter is amazingly able to talk, and it
does so in a singular voice even as it speaks for the multitude of
spirits that compose it (19.7-12).

Among the nominal Christians (who will be further removed from Christ than non-Christians--here marked as Ethiopians and
Persians--when the damned and the saved are separated from one another at the Last Judgment) are European kings and
princes whose shameful actions will be revealed to all in the book of life (Par. 19.106-14). The eagle of Jupiter,
consisting of spirits who previously spelled out a phrase commanding rulers to cherish justice (Par. 18.88-93),
now adopts a different textual strategy to lambaste a select group of harmful political leaders: with the first three
tercets all beginning "There one shall see" (Lì si vedrà), the second three beginning "One shall see" (Vedrassi),
and the final three beginning with the conjunction "and" (e), the initial letters form an acrostic by spelling LUE,
the Latin word for "plague" or "pestilence" (Par. 19.115-41). This acrostic is fitting commentary on the pernicious
effects of injustice and misrule, much as the acrostic in the Purgatory underscored the propensity of humankind
(VOM) to fall victim to pride (Purg. 12.25-63).

The eagle first rebukes Albert I of Austria (died 1308), already the target of Dante's ire (along with his father,
Rudolph I of Hapsburg) because of his neglect of Italy (Purg. 6.97-117), for his ruthless invasion of Bohemia in 1304
(Par. 19.115-17). Although Albert was never crowned emperor, his election was recognized in 1303 by
Pope Boniface VIII as part of the
pope's strategy in forging an alliance against
Philip the Fair, the French
king excoriated here for the damage he inflicted on France (he was rumored to have financed his wars by falsifying
currency) before dying during a hunt (in 1314) when a wild boar charged his horse (Par. 19.118-20). After a
generic reference to hostilities between arrogant English and Scottish rulers, the eagle laments the wanton, lax
lifestyles of Ferdinand IV (1295-1312), king of Castile and León, and Wenceslaus II, who
ruled Bohemia (1278-1305) when it was attacked by his brother-in-law, Albert (above) (Par. 19.121-26).
The "Cripple of Jerusalem" refers to Charles II of Anjou (1254-1309), known as Charles the Lame, who
inherited the title of king of Jerusalem from his father, Charles I; adding to the claim of Hugh Capet in Purgatory
that both father and son contribute to the declining worth of French royalty (Purg. 20.67-69, 79-81), the eagle
says that the younger Charles's evil deeds outnumber his good works by a thousand to one (Par. 19.127-29). Many
of Charles's crimes occur in his dealings with Sicily, the "Isle of Fire," where Anchises, Aeneas's father, died in
old age (Aeneid 3.707-15); Frederick II of Aragon (1272-1337), through his avarice and cowardice,
also causes Sicily to suffer (Par. 19.130-32)--so much so, the eagle later says, that the inhabitants grieve
while he and Charles the Lame are alive (Par. 20.62-63). Frederick's brother, James II, who preceded
Frederick in ruling Sicily (1285-95) and later ruled Aragon, and his uncle, King James of Majorca (ruled 1262-1311),
are accused of sullying their noble lineage and two crowns (Par. 19.136-38). The eagle completes the acrostic by
expanding the area infected by pestilent rulers to include Portugal (King Diniz; ruled 1279-1325), Norway
(King Haakon V; ruled 1299-1319), and Rascia (a medieval Balkan kingdom), whose ruler, Stephen Urosh II
(ruled 1282-1321), was reported to have counterfeited Venetian currency (Par. 19.139-41).

As if adding an exclamation point to the accusatory acrostic, the eagle remarks that Hungary would be happy finally to
have a righteous, competent ruler, just as Navarre (on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees) would be happy if the mountains
could serve as protection against French expansionism. In fact, the small kingdom, which was later annexed to France, in
1300 could see its future in Cyprus (indicated by the cities of Nicosia and Famagosta), a land already suffering under
the tyranny of its "beast," Henry II of Lusignan (Par. 19.142-48). Nearly covering the length and breadth of
Europe--from Sicily to Norway, Portugal to Hungary--the eagle's lament from the heaven of Jupiter offers a divine
seal of approval to Dante's petition for effective and just political leadership.

A major lesson of the episode of Jupiter is the inscrutability of God's
will, the idea that no one--not even the spirits in Paradise with their
prophetic power--can probe completely the depths of divine knowledge
and justice. Dante poetically illustrates this point in his selection
of the six lights who receive special recognition among the blessed
rulers by forming the eye of the eagle. David, the biblical king
and composer of Psalms ("singer of the Holy Spirit": 20.38), represents
the eye's pupil. This privileged position is consistent with David's
prominent role in the Bible as a ruler, prophet, poet, and ancestor of
Jesus. Called "King David" in the Inferno (he's one of the
spirits rescued from Limbo at the
harrowing
of hell) and the "humble psalmist" in the Purgatorio (as an
example
of humility on the terrace of pride), David is an important
influence on Dante's ideas of justice, poetry, and spirituality. The
Roman emperor Trajan (the first of five spirits shaping the
eagle's eyebrow) is recognized for having consoled a poor widow (20.45),
an act displaying both his love of justice (he punished the killers of
the woman's innocent son) and the humility for which he, like David,
serves as an instructive
example
on the terrace of pride (he halted a military expedition to satisfy
the widow's request). But to imagine Trajan in Paradise at all, Dante
must accept as true the medieval legend that Pope Gregory the Great so
admired the (pagan) Roman emperor that his prayers were answered:
Trajan, who like other noble pagans had been confined to
Limbo
in hell, came back to life so he could embrace the Christian faith and
thereby reap his heavenly rewards. Alongside Trajan shines the light of
Hezekiah (20.49-54), a biblical king whose own prayers and
righteous life moved God to delay his prophesied death and grant an
additional fifteen years of life (2 Kings 20:1-6). Next in line along
the eagle's eyebrow appear two prominent Christian monarchs: the
emperor Constantine, blessed despite his devastating decision to
grant temporal power to the Church when he moved the seat of the empire
eastward, the so-called "
Donation
of Constantine" (believed in the Middle Ages but later proved false)
(20.55-60); and William II of Sicily ("William the Good"), whose
kingdom in southern Italy (he reigned from 1166-89) now suffers under
the tyrannical misrule of Charles II of Anjou and Frederick II of
Aragon but whose aunt and immediate successor was the "great
Constance"
(20.61-6). If Dante followed medieval precedent by placing the
non-Christian emperor Trajan in heaven, responsibility for "saving"
Ripheus, a minor figure from a pagan epic poem, is his alone
(20.67-72). Praised in Virgil's Aeneid as the "first among the
Trojans in justice" after he fell in battle (2.426-8), Ripheus offers
powerful evidence of Dante's insistence that God's ways, particularly on
such fateful issues as predestination, exceed all human limits to
understanding.

The salvation of the Trojan Ripheus, a pagan who lived long before the advent of Christianity, conveys to Dante
the extraordinary power of predestination, the idea that certain souls are chosen--or predestined--to be saved.
This doctrine was the subject of lively debate among Christian theologians throughout the Middle Ages. Following
the thinking of Thomas Aquinas and others on predestination, Dante shows how it is intrinsically bound up with
the concepts of grace, providence, knowledge, and justice. Ripheus, through the workings of grace so profound
that no created being has ever seen its ultimate source, directed all his love to justice; God therefore granted
Ripheus a vision of future redemption, which, by leading him to repudiate paganism, allowed him to be baptized
by the holy virtues (faith, hope, charity) over a thousand years before baptism existed (Par. 20.118-29).
By the time he died, Ripheus had strong faith in Christ, referred to by the eagle as "the feet that were to suffer"
(Par. 20.103-5). Dante's representation of Ripheus's blessedness finds support in Aquinas's claim that
"revelation about Christ was in fact given to many of the pagans" and that even those who did not believe
explicitly in Christ could be saved if they had "an implicit faith in God's providence, believing that God is
man's deliverer in ways of his own choosing, as the Spirit would reveal this to those who know the truth"
(Summa theologiae 2a2ae.2.7).

Building on the views of Augustine and Peter Lombard, Aquinas identifies predestination as "the plan,
existing in God's mind, for the ordering of some persons to salvation" (Summa theologiae 1a.23.2).
This plan, moreover, "is certain, though the freedom of choice, from which predestination as an effect
contingently issues, is not abolished" (1a.23.6). Because of free will, by which individuals are held
accountable for their actions, even the predestined "must strive in prayer and good works, for through
them the effect of predestination will assuredly be fulfilled" (1a.23.8). To clarify how both predestination
and free will can exist, Dante stresses the insurmountable gap separating human knowledge and vision from
the ways of God. The "root" of predestination, the eagle exclaims in response to Ripheus's salvation, is
unknowable because human beings are incapable of seeing the first cause in its entirety; not even the
blessed know all those chosen to be saved (Par. 20.130-35).

The most effective way for Dante to illustrate the distinction between human and divine knowledge is
through concrete images. Thus the eagle, even before revealing the unanticipated presence of Trajan and
Ripheus in Jupiter, compares the inability of humankind to comprehend fully the workings of divine justice
to how the human eye cannot see the ocean bottom far from shore: though hidden by the deep sea, the floor
is nonetheless always there (Par. 19.58-63). Likewise, Cacciaguida in the previous sphere explains
how his ability to see Dante's future doesn't imply necessity (and therefore negate free will) by describing
how the act of observing a ship as it floats down a river doesn't determine the ship's movement (Par. 17.37-42).
Even Thomas Aquinas resorts to a visual comparison to show how future events, which cannot be known with certainty
by humans, are seen by God in his eternal knowledge: "In the same way a man going along a road does not see those
who come behind him; but the same man who sees the whole road from a height sees all together those who are
passing along the road" (Summa theologiae 1a.14.13). According to this line of thinking, God's simultaneous
knowledge of all events (past, present, and future) doesn't mean that he causes them to happen.

1. While Dante's talking eagle follows orthodox Christian doctrine by
positing Christian faith as a prerequisite for salvation
(19.70-8; 103-5), he also makes clear that many who profess to have
this faith will in the end be judged more harshly than those who do
not (19.106-8). The eye of this eagle is formed by two Jews, two
Christians, and two pagans (20.37-69). Why do you think Dante places
such emphasis on the inscrutability of God's will and the foolish
arrogance of those who attempt to penetrate it?

2. What are the implications of Dante's decision to place Ripheus, a
minor character in Virgil's Aeneid, in heaven, while Virgil
himself (along with many other virtuous non-Christian characters) is
relegated to
Limbo,
the first circle of hell?